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Lose weight How to regain mobility after a period of inactivity
Starting with strength training is the most effective way to exercise after a period of sedentary lifestyle.
Although we constantly talk about the virtues of exercising, and we are aware of them, not everything is as easy as it seems. Starting (or returning) to play sports is always difficult, because laziness and low motivation they can make us give up on our goal with ease. And it can even be more complicated if we have already had our “first steps” with physical activity, and either because of a medical problem, or simply “because of those things that happen”, we have stopped.
Return to sport after a period of sedentary lifestyle, or after an injury, requires doing it gradually and without forcing ourselves. Although the first impulse to recover physical activity is to jump into cardio, both the personal trainer Alejandro Barrio (@abarrio_) and personal trainer Sarai González (@saraigonzalezentrenadora) agree that strength training has more benefits In the first instance. “Strength provides a better quality of life: improves muscle strength and postural health, prevents injuries and shows a more toned body,” says Sarai González. For his part, Alejandro Barrio, although he indicates that “for a completely sedentary person, any form of physical exercise will be a benefit for their health”, also opts for strength training, because in this way we will offer our muscle mass a stimulus mechanical that can generate positive adaptations.
Back to the old routine
Leaving sedentary life behind is a process, and when choosing which exercises we want to resume our activity with, personal trainer Irene Pérez (@irenutrifit) explains that the best is go back to doing the physical activities that we put aside and start, little by little, to recover our daily routine. If we have not done sports before, his recommendation is to opt for gentle exercises, of low intensity and with a marked time not excessive. If we talk about more specific examples, Alejandro Barrio recommends starting with strength exercises with our own body weight: «Squats on one leg with support, dips on the floor, push-ups, or even dominated If you have the necessary material, they can be good exercises to start with ”. If we want to include some “life” to the training, we can use some simple materials to help us give more power to the exercises. The trainer explains that the three most useful acquisitions when scheduling a workout are a pair of dumbbells, a TRX and a pair of elastic bands of different resistance.
Three tips for doing sports after a time of sedentary lifestyle
Personal trainer Alejandro Barrio gives these three tips to start exercising:
1. Prioritize strength training. And no, you are not going to get like a bodybuilder for lifting weights. In the worst case, you will improve your body composition to the point where next summer you will feel like the king or queen of the beach.
2. Pay close attention to the technique of the exercises that you choose for your training. This will save you from a lot of discomfort and possible injury in both the short and long term.
3. Worry about finding how much is enough and too much for your body, or contact a qualified professional who knows how to do it for you.
It may scare us, if we have been away from him for a long time, playing sports and then injuring ourselves. Sarai González explains in the first place the importance of understanding that an exercise can work for one person, and not for another. “Each person has different needs and that is something that we have to be very clear about. A person who has a sedentary job is obviously different from the person who has a busy job, “he explains and goes on to recommend, in order to avoid injuries, be very well informed before starting sports and above all,” have very much in mind that not everything goes ». Recommend choosing exercises that help us to strengthen muscularly and posturally in order to avoid pain in our daily life. “There is no bad exercise, if not a badly executed exercise,” he ends.
Dancing to start exercising
Another way to start moving little by little can be through dance. Irene Pérez comments that it is a simple activity that serves us as cardiovascular exercise and for which we do not need anything. “By choosing the music that we like and moving the body as best we know how, we are releasing an incredible amount of hormones of happiness, and it helps us to move,” says the coach.
The general advice from the three coaches is to find exercises that really motivate us. One option may be opt for group activities, since these, says Alejandro Barrio, tends to be a greater motivation for most people. Even so, he recommends that we ask ourselves what we like and, if we do not know exactly what one likes (“something that happens a lot of times”), try to answer “What do I prefer?” of everything I have at my fingertips. “We do all of this with the main objective of improving adherence to physical exercise, understood as the ability to continue with a process over time,” recalls the coach. «The introduction should always be progressive. And it is important to find a sports discipline that we like to be able to generate that need for activity in our daily lives », concludes Sarai González.